State Member for Wallsend, Ms Sonia Hornery MP, will today debate a Notice of Motion in the NSW Parliament which calls on the Minister for Police to look at resources in the Wallsend electorate.
The Motion notes that a shortage of Police officers has resulted in failures to arrive at triple zero emergencies within the 12 minute benchmark times.
According to reports, NSW has the lowest ratio of Police officers to population of any major Australian state, with 215 officers for every 100,000 people, compared to 222 per 100,000 in Victoria and 275 in South Australia.
Quotes attributable to Member for Wallsend, Sonia Hornery
“I have lost count of the number of times I have stood up in Parliament and urged the Government to allocate more resources to Wallsend.”
“I acknowledge that Police are doing the best they can, but the simple fact is that the Wallsend electorate sits on the fringe of three different Local Police Districts and has been neglected when it comes to the allocation of policing resources.”
“Local business owners have been telling me that even if they call the Police, a lot of the offenders realise that it’ll take too long for them to arrive so they feel like they can get away with it anyway.”
“It’s very frustrating and they just don’t know what to do. They’ve had to resort to asking the community for help with identifying alleged thieves.”
“Last month, Superintendent Brett Greentree joined me in attending a meeting hosted by the Wallsend Town Business Association, bringing Wallsend business owners together with high-ranking local Police officers to discuss these issues.”
“It was a productive meeting but we can’t solve the problems of local crime and lengthy response times without more cops on the beat.”
“I urge the Police Minister to take action now.”